We Are Back! by Gary Thomas

Wednesday

Dec 5, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 5, 2012 at 3:25 PM

Yes, we have taken a three month hiatus and will resume posting. We especially thank Cathy Ripley for her support and persistence in working logistics and tech issues. As a software engineer of nearly 50 years, I gripe a lot about things to Cathy, but thus far this rendition has better work flow and power; after we work through the embedded picture problem and some other minor things we should be good to go.

Danny will start out with several articles that he has previewed on our Facebook Group entitled Chillicothe Missouri Remember When. All together we did 50 in eight months before the blogging software was reworked in August, all posts should be restored in the coming days from the archives.

As before, DB writes a lot of good personal stories about the good old days and I post them. Once in awhile, I will post something related to my latest local history project. I am inclined to feed it in smaller doses than before to hopefully improve feedback.

I have found some interesting stuff about old Judge Joe Slagle and and his place in our history. It is entirely possible that Joe was one of the first students at the University of Virginia at about 15 years of age. He may have sat in the parlor of the founder of this school on a typical Sunday afternoon after church. Thomas Jefferson opened his home to his small band of students often. The U. of Va. was no more than 25 miles from the Slagle farm and mill. It appears that Joe attended UVA until about 1827 when his father George passed away. Then his story really gets interesting....He was said to have received an education by no means limited per our Livingston County 1886 history. But, they got the name of the school wrong. I plan to set a lot of context going through his story. It helped me understand better what life was like in our tiny frontier town of Chillicothe in the 1840's and 1850's.

I am also accepting and will consider chronciling any related stories from our readership that they would like to share about strange "goings on" around the Slagle Mill and Cemetery. These stories ideally should be first person accounts; I already have a very good one to share from Susan Gash, a Facebook friend (see below).

The readership response mechanism for this new software is more user friendly than before. So hopefully we can have more dialogue on what we post. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

We have issues to resolve regarding picture inclusion and chopping off text in some fields, but stay tuned and bear with us. GT

Hello, Mr. Thomas. I have a Slagle's Mill story to share. This was back in the early 1980's. Usually, my friends and I hung out at Gully Lanes playing the arcade games or shooting pool. One weekend night during the summer, we were bored and someone mentioned Slagle's Mill. So we hopped into our cars and headed out on Route V. The first thing we always noticed were the trees that lined the cemetery. The odd part being that the leaves hanging over the fence, toward the road, were brown and dead. While the leaves on the inside of the fence were green and healthy looking.

Naturally, we had to drive slowly over the old bridge with our windows rolled down, hoping to hear one of Old Man Slagle's wives scream. Rumor had it, you could hear one scream at the stroke of midnight. We were particularly brave this night and we parked our cars on the bridge and got out. Standing there was an eerie feeling, even though we didn't hear any screaming.

One of my friends decided to explore the cemetery with her boyfriend. While walking through the cemetery, they came across a piece of tombstone that had fallen off of one of the grave markers. My friend thought it would be cool to take it home with her, so she picked it up and carried it back to her car, placing it inside of the trunk. Since it appeared to be an uneventful night, we all decided to head back into town.

When my friend tried to start her car, it wouldn't start. But the seat belt buzzer began to go off repeatedly. This was weird, since it had never worked before. When she bought her car, the seat belt buzzer didn't work. Her boyfriend started to investigate under the hood to find reason why the car would not start, yet the buzzer was working. Finally, my friend decided they needed to get the piece of tombstone out of their vehicle.

They took the piece of tombstone and placed it back into the cemetery where they had found it. When they returned to the car, the car started, but the seat belt buzzer continued to go off repeatedly. The buzzing continued as they drove toward the turn on Route V heading back into town.

The next day, my friend took her car to a garage where the mechanic inspected the vehicle. The only thing he found was that the seat belt buzzer wasn't hooked up. He said it would have been impossible for it to go off. That was not our last trip to Slagle's Mill. We enjoyed the adventure on numerous weekends when we were bored with playing arcade games or shooting pool.